Evidence that God is real

The knowledge is that the weather report does (or does not) correlate to weather. If that knowledge wasn't there, under normal circumstances, given that scenario, there would be no question of considering taking the umbrella.

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Yes, I know that the report attempts to forecast the weather. That is through definition of the report in question. My confidence in it is based on empirical evidence. At no stage do I have knowledge that what the report says is true. Until after the event, at any rate.

No, faith correlates to action.

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Then we differ on our understanding of what "faith" is.

There may be various degrees of confidence, but the faith one is placing in a certain thing is necessarily singular, one way or another: it either is or it isn't. At the end of the day, you either have faith or no faith in the weather report, as characterized by either taking the umbrella or not taking the umbrella. There is no halfway or sliding scale since you cannot partially take the umbrella. There is no middle ground.

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I disagree with this notion of faith. To me faith is quite simple: strong, or even absolute, confidence in something. That is how I use it, and your usage is new to me.
I am also not sure what this has to do with knowledge.

Knowledge that the weather report is or is not reliable in regard to weather.

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I don't know it. I do know that they might be right. I also know that they might be wrong. At no point do I know if the weather report is reliable. I know it tries to be and empirical experience suggests that it is better than simply guessing.

Just to be clear, in that example faith either manifests in a yes or a no, as characterized by the decision to take or not take the umbrella. If you have faith, you take the umbrella. If you don't, you leave it behind. All sorts of ideas can come and go before or even after making that decision to act, but once you act, you have determined your faith (at least you have determined it, at that moment).

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Again, I disagree, based on my understanding of faith. at no point do I have strong or absolute confidence in the weather report. I take the umbrella because it (as the only source of information) introduces doubt to my expectation of a bright and sunny day. I weigh that doubt against my willingness to get wet. I don't have faith, as I understand it, but I do have some confidence in the report. Hence I don't dismiss it out of hand, hence I take my umbrella.
Where is your notion of faith from?

In case you haven't worked it out yet, I am in the process of describing three different nuanced approaches to defining faith, as characterized by action. People (especially atheists!) commonly talk of faith in a singular sense when they are often mixing and matching things to suit the current form of their arguments.

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Sure, and none of them so far do I recognise as being about faith. But continue, by all means.

To go back to the umbrella eg, the "completeness" of the confidence in the weather report begins and ends at the point of taking or not taking the umbrella. That is the point it is defined as an "act of faith" (in this case, in relation to the weather report).

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Again, not my understanding of the phrase. There is no personal sacrifice involved, no testing, there is simply a weighing up of information and being pragmatic: weighing the perceived risk of rain with the willingness to get wet. To me there is definitely no faith in the weather report involved in taking the umbrella. It is simply a matter of confidence,

The point is that you trust that they won't, unless there is some untoward behaviour (at which point you would instantly disregard whatever protection painted lines, etc offered).
IOW the knowledge here is a certain prearranged agreement on traffic signs, road paint etc. The consequent action is adopting a "standard behaviour". Unlike the umbrella scenario, which culminates to a momentous yes/no, this sort of faith is stronger, and runs as a perennial flow in the background (and delivers an instant erraticness if it is broken or wavers in any way).
Just to be clear, the act of knowledge is not "knowing other cars won't crash into me", but rather acting for all intents and purposes like they won't (the specific act being flying through a green light at an intersection or quickly passing oncoming traffic on a narrow road).

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I'm not talking about acts of knowledge but about actual knowledge. I certainly have confidence that people will not drive on the wrong side of the road, and I have confidence in my understanding of the norms, and all "faith" seems to be here is a degree of confidence. Yes, I accepted up front i know definitions (of the Highway Code, for example) but adherence to those (by myself and others) is just a matter of confidence, not knowledge,

Even though this faith is stronger, it tends to develop at a painstakingly slow rate (think of a person taking their first driving lesson) and if it is severely undermined can potentially be damaged irreparably. There is some space in this definition to introduce a spectrum (unlike the example with the umbrella)

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If I read "confidence" where you write "faith" then I would agree. But I'm sure you don't think faith is just synonymous with confidence?

The very fact they are termed "accidents", suggest there is a standard of knowledge already at the fore. IOW calling them an "accident" is to identify the precise point the knowledge is transgressed.

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Again, already accepted from the outset knowledge via definition.

At which point, our trust is broken.

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Our confidence in the ability of other drivers is likely diminished, yes. But this speaks nothing with regard knowledge.

You can sit back in your armchair and get all cerebral about it, but the field of activity demands an instant response.
If you do have faith in the weather report, you do take an umbrella.
If you don't trust an oncoming car doing donuts on the wet road, you adopt evasive action and don't rely on the road markings, etc to grant you safe passage.

It may or may not rain.
You may or may not be involved in a traffic incident.
But that is neither here nor there when faith demands a follow up action.

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I remain confused as to your use of the term faith. We are/were talking of knowledge, were we not? Very little of any of what you have said has actually seemed to be about it, but rather about a notion of faith that on one hand I find synonymous with confidence, and on the other just frankly quite odd. But I have no doubt that the issue there is mine, in sticking to the simple understanding I have of faith as simply being strong /absolute confidence in something/one etc.

Then you sleep in and you miss your flight or get fired.

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Hasn't happened so far. But of course I don't know that it won't ever happen.

Sometime later, you have another similar development on your calendar. Science has, as yet, not discovered immortality (or even a means to avoid missing a flight or getting fired), so once again you ruminate on the inherent impermanence of life as you contemplate setting or not setting your alarm. What do you do?

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What I've always done... go to bed and wake up the following morning when I need to. I've never had a problem with doing so. You may want to pick another example. And while science may not have discovered a means to avoid getting fired, owning your own business tends to be an easier option.

I think I would agree.
It seems from my studies that the story was put together by borrowing from two different authors of a story each of them found elsewhere.

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Well, a grand total of eight that the Church believes for the New Testament; a more likely number is 14 or 15. The Old Testament, of course, has a much larger number.

Take the very first book of the Bible and look at Genesis 1 vs Genesis 2. Two different authors, two different names for God, two different (incompatible) creation stories.

I have never understood what message was to be found in it and why the story was included in the bible.

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That's the beauty of the Bible. Want to find messages of love and compassion? They are there aplenty. Want to find a command to kill all the gays, or keep immigrants behind a wall? If you look hard enough, you can find that too.

That's the beauty of the Bible. Want to find messages of love and compassion? They are there aplenty. Want to find a command to kill all the gays, or keep immigrants behind a wall? If you look hard enough, you can find that too.

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Yes indeed.

I was only referring to the flood re authors and you certainly nailed it and extended the proposition.

Does this suggest many Gods were guiding authors?.....given the inconsistencies it would seem highly probable...but wait it all made up by humans and so we can understand why it suffers errors and inconsistency because clearly even if there is a God he she they it "is" would have done better.

I was going to say the Ark / Flood story is the biggest turd in the pool but as I started to make a list you notice there are quiet a few big ones.

It is interesting that theists claim that morality (good) can only come from the bible and reject the notion that morality is something the individual assembles when clearly if one were to take ten different folk to construct a moral code for each of themselves each using the bible for their guide you would simply have ten different moral codes.

As you say if you dont like gays well stone away but if you prefer go with "love your fellow man" which presumably puts a stop on rock throwing at folk who have as much right to do their thing as anyone else.

Oh and while stoning those gays perhaps address the raping priests...no? Of course now its forgiveness that is rolled out.

Is it any wonder that hypocracy is a common trait with theists?

I suppose the beauty of the bible is that for some folk it would be the only book they would own and even reading the selected passages provided by their particular preacher they at least read something which it would seem may be the only thing they would ever read and so at least they are receptive to the need to be able to read.

But this reading thing is probably satans trick so lets burn all the books.

Although I guess some theists like Jan would say they dont even need to read as they just know because well they just know.

Well its like the eternal universe I just know and you cant understand the eternal universe until you accept it and when you accept it you know its real☺.

Re the flood...
If one was to take the flood story as a fact, (I know that is stepping outside reality but thats the game we play with the theist), it suggests that this God ( two of them given the flood story) notwithstanding his/their/her/it/"is"infalability, arrived at a point where he she it they "is" decided to start again, clearly an addmission of failure ...now rather than reprogram the various humans decided to throw them all out.

Musika likes saying "that would be like"...so let me try...that would be like throwing out every computer in the world bar eight because of a virus effecting the software rather than writing a program to fix the virus...and presumably God being the ultimate programer would be able to write any software to fix any computer... how cruel to kill all the humans how immoral to defend such an approach how stupid to believe the story in the first place.

It does not surprise me that Musika seeks to distance himself from the flood story but for him to suggest it is of no concern to christianity is certainly a case of sticking his head in the sand or someplace because he seems to have missed the Ken Ham Ark show and how it is presented as indeed central to the christians...but how typical of a theist to simply ignore reality if if hinders their delusion.

I would expect such an awesomely important book, literally the missives of the creator of the universe itself to have a little more clarity than a repair manual for an '72 Jeep CJ-5.

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Can you provide an example of any such literature or ideas that finds a necessarily singular mode of appreciation, application or response?
It seems that if a book or idea is great, it is measured by its influence maintained over time.
2000 years later, and even you can't seem to stop yourself talking about it.